One Day This Will All Go Away

The other day in the car I passed a shuttered piano store. Like so many retail outlets, brick and mortar stores are closing up. Sears. Treasure Island. My favorite tea shop. People order things on-line. The tea I used to buy I have to order from Amazon. Virtually every place—in Chicago a metro area of over 3 million people—doesn’t offer the brand I like.

But how do you order a piano. Drones can’t deliver it. Those people on bikes can’t run it up the steps. My UPS guy already has a bad back. Certain things can’t be plucked off the conveyor belt, packed, and shipped at an Amazon warehouse.

Will pianos become extinct?

In a way they are already a rarity, and the people who play them. And the neighborhood ladies who advertise lessons. All of this will become a thing of the past. We’re too busy with our devices and pressing buy.